The Orphan Pearl

by Erin Satie

  “No. You have made your opinion of my methods clear.”

  “I’m surprised the message got through.”

  “You’ve repeated it enough,” he returned, with some asperity. He knocked at the ceiling with his cane, signaling the driver to move again, and then laid it across his knees. “This time, I will try something different. I will… ask.” He cleared his throat, as though the unfamiliar word had gotten stuck and threatened to choke him. “I need your help, Lily.”

  “Me?”

  “This situation with the treaty. Negotiations have dragged on for so long that those of us who have invested our time and effort now have a great deal to lose.”

  “Oh? Because it seems to me that everyone here is gambling with someone else’s coin. The Sultan’s, or Mehmet Ali’s. I can’t see that you’ve anything at stake, personally.”

  “Influence,” her father answered. “A whole lifetime’s worth. Believe me, Lily, the stakes could not be higher. Yet I’m to understand that you handed the pearl into Palmerston’s camp in exchange for—what? A diplomatic posting?”

  “News travels fast.”

  “You should know better than to make such an unequal trade, Lily. Palmerston had everything to lose—everything, he had marched straight to the edge—and you saved him in his hour of need in exchange for a single, piddling favor? One so cheap that he could have granted it a thousand times over and still counted himself lucky?”

  Lily shoved her feet against the opposite baseboard, bracing herself against the cold splash of her father’s contempt.

  “It was more than you offered,” she snapped.

  “True.” He rolled his palms back and forth on the cane in his lap. “But you must understand that it would have been easy for me to arrange. That is what I have worked for—that is why I have worked for so long—so I can walk into any office, at any time, with any request, and know that if it is possible, my will will be done.”

  “You sent men after me,” interrupted Lily. “You hunted me like a criminal.”

  “I did. You lied, kept secrets. Allied yourself with my political enemies. I was very angry.” He spoke flatly, his grip tightening on his cane. “And now anger is a luxury I can no longer afford.”

  Lily laughed. “No? Then you must have taken out a loan.”

  “I am in a… dangerous position.” He faced her, his skin gray and crinkled like paper that had been kept in a pocket too long, folded and refolded, until was soft and ready to dissolve. He had never looked so old, or so tired. “Palmerston risked total ruin; now he triumphs. Everything he won has been at my expense.”

  “Good.”

  “You want to our family name dragged through the mud, our influence gone? Have you thought about how that would affect Adam? His wife, who always teeters on the brink of ostracism? Your cousin Daphne, who has yet to marry?”

  Lily didn’t answer.

  “No? Then let us settle this privately. I need that pearl. What would you have of me? Give me your terms. If it is in my power, I will oblige.”

  “Papa…” This was not what she had expected. Not at all. It had horrified her to see her father fall when she kicked him. It was almost worse to have him at her mercy. “I’m sorry. It’s too late.”

  “Too late?” he repeated.

  “I don’t have the pearl anymore. I gave it to Ware.”

  He shifted in his seat, his gold eyes flashing in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. “That fiction. I never believed it. You could reclaim it at a moment’s notice.”

  Possibly.

  But that little flash of gold made her uneasy. She was clever enough. And she had outwitted her father a few times in her life. Never by underestimating him. And now, when—as he had himself explained—so very much was at stake for him? He would have plots within plots, and schemes hidden in between.

  She had made a plan. She had worked it through with Ware. She would not change it now, because her father played on her pity.

  “You sent Mr. Jones with an offer to give me my name back,” said Lily. “The only condition was that I return to London. Make good on your promise, and I will discuss the pearl.”

  “Discuss?”

  “How else am I to trust you?”

  His lips thinned. “Daughter. I could say the same.”

  They continued the journey in silence—until, sometime later, when the carriage left the highway. Lily sat up straighter, staring out the window as the macadam gave way to a pair of rutted dirt tracks, a strip of grass running down the middle.

  “Where are we going?” She reached for the door, a sudden desperate lunge, but her father snapped his cane at her fingers and she flinched back to avoid the blow. “This is not the road to London.”

  “No,” her father agreed.

  “What about your offer?” Lily tried not to shout, failed. “Ask for anything, you said.”

  “You didn’t accept.”

  “I see.” And she did. She saw how right she had been to cling to that kernel of suspicion. Right to wait until he stripped away the velvet glove, revealing the iron fist.

  Anger steadied her. She laced her hands together in her lap and sat with every muscle locked tight with tension. Soon the carriage slowed, and a break in the hedgerow offered a view of a small private house built of cream-colored stone.

  The shock of recognition nearly unhinged her. She contained the urge to cackle like a madwoman, but it was a near thing.

  Her father had brought her to the same estate where she’d thought to hide with Ware. Not far away, in the woods to the south, lay the lake where they’d swum. She remembered all the reasons why she’d considered it an ideal retreat: it was remote, private, spacious but not grand enough to serve as a local landmark, saw few visitors.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Calm yourself,” her father snapped. “You’ll stay for a few days, a few weeks at most. I told you—I need the Orphan Pearl. I can’t leave it up to chance.”

  “What good will it do to keep me here?”

  “Ware has the pearl. He’ll exchange it for you.”

  “He won’t,” warned Lily.

  “We shall see,” drawled her father. “I believe I understand his priorities quite well.”

  After exiting the carriage, a stern-faced man marched her to a small room three stories up and locked her inside. It contained a mattress, a single blanket, and no bed frame. No chair, no table, no pen, no paper. No pictures on the wall.

  She huddled by the door, ear to the keyhole, eavesdropping as best she could. Her father toured the house, delivering a stream of warnings and instruction: she wasn’t to leave her room under any circumstances; she wasn’t to be given any tools, no matter how she begged or wheedled. Her meals should be served with a single spoon, no more, which she was not to keep in her room betweentimes.

  At the end of this terrifying tour, they stopped by her room. She just had time to scramble away from the door before it opened. The stern-faced man stood behind her father, a woman at his side. Both were around the same age, with the same coarse skin, strong bodies with a light cushion of fat. Brother and sister or man and wife; after a certain age, it could be hard to guess.

  “Once I have the pearl safely in hand, I’ll fetch you up to London,” said her father. “In the meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper will look after you.”

  So. Man and wife, then. She wondered if they’d worked here long enough to remember her as a child. She wondered if the memory bothered them or if they relished the role reversal.

  “Never open the door alone,” said her father, apparently not yet finished with his instructions. “When one of you enters, the other must remain here, on the landing. Give her an opportunity, and she’ll be gone before you know it. Am I understood?”

  Both Coopers nodded.

  “Now, I’d like a few final words with my daughter.”

  The Coopers filed down the narrow stairs and her father faced her from his position at the door, as her jail
or.

  “Papa,” Lily whispered. “Don’t do this. Please.”

  “Don’t whine. It’s beneath you.”

  “This is cruel.”

  “Greater comfort would have made it impossible to contain you.” He jingled the key to her room, hanging from a chain he’d looped around one finger, and smirked. “You are, as always, too clever for your own good.”

  “It’s a bit early to gloat, don’t you think?” Lily scooted backward until she hit the wall and stretched out her legs. “Perhaps you will seize the pearl, triumph over your political rivals, teach me a lesson, and all will be right with the world. But none of those things have yet come to pass.”

  Lily continued in a lower, more threatening tone. “And I’m going to make sure that none of them ever do.”

  He smiled faintly. “You’re welcome to try.”

  The door shut. The lock turned. Footsteps shuffled down three flights of stairs, punctuated by the tapping of her father’s cane. Lily ran to the window, but her room didn’t face the front drive. Though she never saw the carriage leave, the silence that settled over the house told her that he’d gone.

  The window looked out on a wide green lawn, the grass trimmed short in a narrow belt around the house but growing tall and wild beyond that. No trees nearby, so no sturdy branches to facilitate an escape. Peering down, all she saw was a long, long drop with nothing to break the fall.

  In any case, the window had a lock on it.

  Eventually, her legs grew weary. She sat down on her mattress and indulged in a bout of self-pity and despair, which lasted until the Coopers arrived with supper. They followed her father’s instructions to the letter. Mr. Cooper stood at the door while Mrs. Cooper entered with a tray. She set it down on the floor, a foot away from where Lily sat, and withdrew without a word.

  The door closed again. The bolt slid into place. On her tray rested a bowl of brown stew swimming with chunks of beef, a glass of water, and a spoon. Her stomach twisted; she hadn’t eaten since the night before.

  She wolfed down the stew. When she reached the bottom of the bowl, she raised it to her lips and tipped it up to get the last drops. It didn’t entirely assuage her hunger, but when the Coopers returned, she didn’t ask them for more. It was foolish to let pride get in the way of survival—but she’d rather sleep on an empty stomach than beg her keepers for a favor.

  Tonight, at least.

  She slept poorly and woke angry. For days, she nursed that anger. She paced in little circles. She plotted revenge without coming up with any ideas that had the slightest chance of success.

  Then the weather turned hot and Lily, trapped underneath the roof where all the thick warm air collected, lost the energy to rage. Instead, she stripped down to her petticoat and lay on her bed, sweating a damp imprint of her body into the mattress. The heat—along with enforced idleness—killed her appetite, and she began to pick at her meals, forcing down a bite or two and leaving the rest.

  Mrs. Cooper clucked as she collected the third untouched lunch tray in a row. After a whispered conversation at the door, Mr. Cooper crossed to the window and used a thin steel rod to unfasten the lock.

  Lily sat up on the mattress as he raised the sash. A gust of fresh air cut through the stale miasma that had settled over her room, and she almost cried out from relief. Once she was alone, she ran to the window and leaned the whole upper half of her body over the sill, taking such deep breaths she made herself dizzy.

  She patted her sweaty face dry with the hem of her skirt and slumped against the jamb. It was so much cooler outside. Breezes cut through the bright sun, made the tall grasses beyond the trimmed belt of lawn bend and sway. She got a good look at the exterior walls, now that she could crane her head out—they were every bit as smooth as she’d feared, with no cracks or protruding brickwork to cling to. The window would not be her way out.

  And then, raking her damp hair back away from her eyes, she happened to look up.

  At the roof.

  The roof.

  She clapped her palm over her mouth to stifle a laugh. Gracious, could it really be that easy? She ducked back into her room and bit on her blanket to contain the hysterical noises she couldn’t repress.

  She’d wait until dark… no. The Coopers might close the window and lock it again when they brought her supper. She couldn’t wait for the cover of night. Her chances of making it all the way to the road in broad daylight were slim, but she had to try.

  She put on her dress and tucked the skirts up around her waist, leaving herself naked to mid-thigh. A moment with her ear at the door told her that the Coopers had retreated to the ground floor. So. No last-minute excuse to give up on her ridiculous plan. She climbed out the window onto the slanted, slate-tiled roof. If she slipped, she’d slide right off and fall to her death.

  She climbed the steep slope on all fours like a crab. Inch by inch, all the way to the ridge where the roof peaked. Halfway across, and the easy part done. The ascent had taken her away from the perilous drop and kept her attention fixed safely upward on the sky. The descent, on the other hand… She would have to crawl closer and closer to that fatal drop. She would have to go over the edge.

  She shuddered. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn’t she realized what a terrible idea this was half an hour ago? It had been obvious enough.

  She scooted down the sloped roof, aiming for the corner where the dormer—the mirror of the one she’d climbed out of, only on the opposite side of the house—protruded from the slope of sun-warmed tile. She clamped her lips around a terrified whimper as she rolled onto her stomach and, wedged into the corner, began to push away from the roof.

  Her feet dangled—dangled—splayed out awkwardly until she’d pushed herself halfway and she could bend her legs and feel for the ledge. Her stomach squeezed its contents up her throat inch by inch, until her toes made contact with solid stone. She breathed a sigh of relief, twisting her leg to align it with the sill before slowly transferring her weight. She lowered herself limb by limb, until she crouched beneath the gable.

  The sash lifted when she tugged it. And then she was inside, in a mirror of her prison—only this room had never been locked. She tiptoed to the door, listened for a moment, then slowly eased it open.

  No voices, no movement, so she advanced to the stairs.

  A rattling in the kitchen told her where to find Mrs. Cooper, but even after sitting still for several minutes she didn’t hear anything she use to locate Mr. Cooper. What if he’d gone outside? He could be standing right by the door with a watering can, perfectly positioned to catch her on her way out.

  She’d look again when she reached the ground floor. The stairs were daunting enough: She took them on all fours, just like the roof, never lowering enough weight on a single step to make it creak. She could only imagine how ridiculous she looked, but she reached the bottom without being caught.

  She began to tremble as she crept to the front door. To come so far and be caught at the last moment… She turned the knob with numb, clumsy fingers. If her caretakers were up to snuff, they would be attuned to the sound the front door made when it opened. It would wake them from a sound sleep as effectively as any military drummer, and call them from any corner of the house. From this point on, luck and her two good legs would have to see her through.

  She heaved the door open. She fisted her skirts. And she ran for the road, sprinting with desperate energy. Her breath whistled in her ears, and she expected at every moment to hear a shout behind her.

  She’d be chased. Mr. Cooper would wheel round from the back of the house on a horse, and he would run her down. Even if he only managed to follow behind on a wagon, how far could she really get on her own? Did she really think she’d be able to walk all the way to London without any money, without being caught?

  But she had to, so she would find a way.

  And then the voice she’d been afraid of, the one that saw and named her, came. But from the wrong direction—from in front of her
.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Lily!”

  She stumbled and fell to her knees, skinning her palms. She’d failed. She hadn’t even made it to the road.

  “Over here!” cried the voice, and this time she placed it: Ware. She spied him beyond the hedgerow at the same moment as she heard Mrs. Cooper shouting at the front door to the house—but her fear had shriveled away to nothing. Ware had found her, and she was safe.

  Ware ducked out of sight behind the hedge and she lunged to her feet. She ran, stronger and more sure of herself, even as the clamor behind her grew. She reached the edge of the property, skidded to a halt in the middle of the road, and saw Ware settling himself on the back of a fine gray mare.

  He held out his hand. “Climb up.”

  She grabbed hold, braced her foot against his and swung up behind him.

  “Go,” she urged, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Go, go, go!”

  He urged the horse into a canter and didn’t stop until they were miles away, veering off the road to dismount by a public well on the outskirts of a small village, well off the highway.

  “Hold these?” Ware handed her the reins and headed for the well, taking hold of the wheel and lowering the bucket into the cistern. “We’ll water her and let her graze for a few minutes. If you want to press on for London, we could be there tonight.”

  Lily waved these questions away. “Did you give my father the pearl?”

  Ware snorted. “Of course not.”

  “Then how did you find me?”

  “Clive had someone sifting through your father’s mail, and your caretakers sent Hastings daily reports.”

  Lily began to laugh.

  “I saw you on the roof,” he said.

  “Oh, mercy,” Lily gasped. “I was so frightened.”

  “So was I,” he admitted, a trace of the breathless terror that had possessed her during the climb shining in his eyes. “I was waiting by the road—I’d planned to sneak in during the night—when I saw you climb out the from the dormer. I thought about calling for you to wait—”